


What Makes a Joey a Joey?

by Control_Room



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 19:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17925236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room
Summary: Joey might not be certain he fits in with the other Joeys around him.





	What Makes a Joey a Joey?

**Author's Note:**

> Various Joeys used: Joy is [@jovialdrew](https://tmblr.co/m8w8Eq1H5gw_Ee2qilMpvgQ)‘s, Felix is [@smoresthehalloweenqueen](https://tmblr.co/mzSfZUiBzjtZzLZgOmLZHdg)‘s, Gingie is [@pipesflowforeverandever](https://tmblr.co/m2zmumMEKoKDrJDlESd5txQ)’s, Egg is [@greenghostlyjekyll](https://tmblr.co/mo7RBvtdyPbseNlaN2p90Fw)’s, Magenta is [@halfusek](https://tmblr.co/mAf3vdzc4wXYCzWCxKkU7dA)’s, Snowy is [@aceofintuition](https://tmblr.co/mDWgNFUdJwq2ycefKQTVhZQ)’s, Hyde is [@startistdoodles](https://tmblr.co/mJuUIVFyH87l9lVizPl0y8g)’s, Magician is [@lady-lampblack](https://tmblr.co/mQRjvvwi-6VdzJ6PCL490gA)’s, and Corvid is [@silvenarts](https://tmblr.co/mLTET7OTr4a7qEYMGQRwoXw)’s.

Joey swallowed roughly as he looked up at the sign tied up to an invisible ceiling, reading it again, tightly gripping his own hands to quell the trembling. It was a sign he had seen many times, a sign that relaxed him and made him feel safe, with people he could trust.

 

‘ALL JOEY DREWS WELCOME,’ it read. He felt sick to his stomach. He was no Joey Drew, was he? He never was one, was he? He did not belong here, or did he?

 

“Hey, Johan!” Joy’s wonderful, bouncy voice snapped him out of his wallowing. “Come on over!”

 

He forced on a smile, glancing at his reflection, and dropped the facade with a sigh, knowing it was too strained and false for anyone to fall for it (in more ways than one, his mind added in a cocky hiss, making him flinch). He let his shoulders slacken, the suit feeling tight on his neck, the tie a vice and the cuffs chains. He tried to relax. Tried to calm. He was greeted by various Joeys, some preoccupied, some not, all of them the. Same. Damn. Man.

 

Johan’s head threatened to split with a wave of random information, and he exhaled as he slumped onto a chair, allowing his long limbs to splay out. Then, feeling exposed and uncomfortable, he crossed his legs. Then his arms. He tucked in his knees. And ducked his head. Making himself as small as possible. The men around him were so much better than him. They deserved to be seen, he did not. How he wished that he could curl up more, how he wanted to be so compressed he would implode, creating a vortex of a black hole, removing anything that may have ever been ‘Johan Ramirez’ from the world. Why did he even come back here, he was no Joey Drew.

 

He did not deserve to be around these wonderful people. Sure; many of them had screwed up, or killed, or ruined, but they were still Joey Drews.

 

Better than him.

 

He did not even share their initials, not even the JD. Not anything alike, no similarities. It made him feel quite very isolated, so alone. 

 

He jumped when he felt a touch on his shoulder, unsnapping faster than a jack in the box, his cane reflexively appearing in his hand to steady him. Gingie was looking at him with soft eyes and a concerned smile, Felix beside him, the young man’s headphones on his shoulders as he too looked at Johan caringly. Johan swallowed, tiny needles jabbing into his throat.

 

As much as he felt secluded, he was not alone, he was in the middle of a room with other people. He could not just close himself off, he had to be with the crowd. He had to at least seem like he was oka-

 

“Hey, are you okay?” Felix asked cautiously, smiling with a bit of anxiousness. Johan blinked, his mind not stringing the words together in a pattern that worked (“Okay are, hey you” does not make much sense, he concluded.), and he tilted his head for indicating his confusion. “You seem… uh, off?”

 

“I-I’m fi-fine,” he replied jerkily, mentally slapping himself for not registering what was being asked earlier, and for the stuttering response he made. Forcing a smile on his face, he felt a blush flair onto his cheeks, flushing at his own embarrassment. “Just a b-bit…” he coughed, “a  _ small _ headache.”

 

“I don’t think that’s it, now, is it?” Gingie gently inquired. Johan looked to his shoes. He vaguely noticed a similarities in their shoes, his and Gingie’s. The older man still was so much better than him, so courageous for being able to smile each day, so mighty in his kindness, in spite of what he may have done. “Johan. What’s the matter, dear?”

 

“I’m nothing like you,” he nearly whispered, his lips twitching. A minute anger flared in his eyes to die down moments later. “I’m nothing like any of you. Nothing at all! It’s clear I don’t belong here, why do you let me stay here? You’re all so great, and I’m… I’m just Johan Ramirez! I’m no Drew, I’m no Joey, I’m nothing! Nothing!”

 

It occurred to Johan by the silence that followed his words that he had rose his voice.

 

A maroon flush coated his face, and he looked to his shoes, even as everyone around stared at him.

 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, biting his lip. “I shouldn’t’ve blown up at you. It’s not your fault, it’s mine.”

 

“I don’t think you’re nothing,” Joy piped up. Johan’s head lifted to look toward him. “I think you’re you.”

 

A thousand words spun in Johan’s head, he able to say none of them, so he let his head fall as he flushed. 

 

“I’m… not right.” he carefully chose, the silence unbearable. He looked at his hands. Ink dripped from one, the other spasming into and out of a glove. He hid them behind his back shamefacedly. “I’m not even a Joey.”

 

“What makes someone a Joey?” Gingie asked softly. Johan looked at him forlornly and shrugged. Gingie smiled wider, knocking his Bendy tipped cane against Johan’s now pale blue one. Johan stepped back, startled by the rap. “Do you have a cane?”

 

“Well, I mean I-”

 

“Got a moustache?” Joy beamed.

 

“Yeah, but I don’t thi-”

 

“Do you drink ink?” Egg offered, swirling a glass of the stuff.

 

“Sometime-”

 

“Unreasonably tall?” Magenta asked with a wink.

 

“Maggie, that may be tru-”

 

“Hair defying the laws of physics?” Snowy smirked.

 

“That’s just becaus-”

 

“Lost your child in a horrific fashion?” Hyde droned.

 

“Hey! That’s personal!”

 

“Technologically advanced?” Felix input.

 

“Come on, that was an acciden-”

 

“Do you wear glasses?” Magician inquired.

 

“Yes bu-”

 

“Extremely gay?” Corvid tossed in, smiling.

 

Johan glanced at the pin on his own chest.

 

“Just because I share a few things wit-”

 

“Johan.” Gingie cut him off, clearing his throat and speaking softly. “Have you ever used the name ‘Joey Drew’?”

 

“… I have.”

 

“Then you’re a Joey!”

 

Johan looked around, at the men so unlike yet so similar to himself.

 

He did not choose his name.

 

But he would not have had any other.

 

“I suppose,” he quietly agreed, blushing. A smile overtook his face, “that I’m a Joey.”


End file.
